In the middle 1850’s that part of Ohio that surrounds Akron was the
pipemaking capital of the United States, with at least six clay products
companies producing them (Blair, 1965:26-30). The leading producer of
clay smoking pipes in the Akron vicinity was the E. H. Merrill Co.,
which had been producing pottery objects since its founding in 1831. In
1843 or 1844 Calvin, brother of E. H. Merrill, invented a machine for
making pipes which greatly increased the output of the company and gave
quite an advantage over its competitors (Blair, 1965:3).
The Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company, Inc., was
established by the Akron Smoking Pipe Company of Akron, Ohio, when they
built the plant at Pamplin.
That the clay in Appomattox County was well suited to pipe manufacture
was well known. The establishment of this plant was no doubt the result
of the Company’s realization of the availability of the fine red clay
from which the local women were producing pipes, a clay that could be
used without even sifting.
When the Pamplin Factory was established is quite uncertain. Examination
of the microfilm of newspapers of the area that were available from the
Virginia State Library, beginning February 3, 1869 through December 25,
1896, gave no clue to the date of the establishment of the Pamplin
Factory, nor did county records, probably due to the fire of 1892.
_Sometime immediately prior to 1880 William Merrill of Akron, Ohio,
undoubtedly a member of the pipe making family, established a pipe
making factory at Pamplin._ (Omwake, 1967:23). Our Pamplin informants
were of the opinion that the Akron plant was devoted to the manufacture
of drain tile after the pipe machinery was moved to Pamplin.
Bob Davis of Pamplin, born 1871, in an interview with John W. Walker in
September 1962, said, “I was a kid when the factory came in”. Timewise
this would be in general agreement with Omwake’s estimate for the date
of the establishment of the factory at Pamplin.
That Pamplin pipes were also available from Akron in 1893 is evidenced
by a letterhead of the Akron Smoking Pipe Company, dated June 26, 1893,
showing examples of two clay pipes similar to Plate 22 AF & AG, (Blair,
1965:36). A communication from the Summit County Historical Society
reports, “The Akron Smoking Pipe Co. is recorded as being in business
from 1891 to 1895, and were manufacturers of stone, Powhatan Clay, and
corn cob tobacco pipes. Daily capacity 100,000 pipes. General offices,
Akron, Ohio. Factories, Pamplin City, Virginia; Mogadore, Ohio.”
Statements in company literature are also confusing. In a leaflet which
carries a testimonial for their pipes, dated April 28, 1941 and price
lists “effective November 15, 1941”, the statement is made, _from
careful search of the records, this factory started more than 200 years
ago ... the present plant has been in operation for 44 years. Skilled
American labor is used in a modern, day-lit plant with special attention
to cleanliness, sanitation, and ideal working conditions_ (Plate 8).
This would give a date for the “present plant” of 1897, but it also
suggests that an earlier plant had been rebuilt or replaced. (An undated
and unidentified news clipping does state that at some time the pipe
plant had burned). Company literature also states, “Established 1739”
(Plate 8). This obviously cannot refer to the establishment of the
plant, nor even to the mother plant at Akron, since pottery was first
produced in Summit County, Ohio, in 1828 (Blair, 1965:2). The Company
may simply have been employing “poet’s license” and appropriated a date
which they felt representative of the start of the Home Pipe Making
Industry in the Pamplin area.
The _Times-Virginian_ of Appomattox, date unknown, carried a news
article, _Pamplin Clay Pipe Plant once termed largest in the World_. The
_Farmville Herald_ of March 29, 1935 stated, ... _the output of the Clay
Pipe Factory at Pamplin is 1,000,000 a month, when it is running full
time. In the roster of business in Virginia, this factory is mentioned
as the largest clay pipe factory in the United States, and so far as is
known, in the world._
At one point in the history of the plant, pipes were sold to England as
well as some other countries in Europe.
Also vague has been the terminal date of the Pamplin Company; it is
variously given locally as 1948 to 1951.
There is a contemporary news article on the factory published in the
_Richmond Times-Dispatch_, April 21, 1946. _A History of Appomattox,
Virginia_, published 1948, states, _The Akron Pipe Factory of Pamplin
holds the title of manufacturing the finest clay smoking pipes in the
world, known as the ‘Powhatan’_ (Featherstone, 1948:44).
In a personal letter to the writers, John C. Ewers said, “During my
field work on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana, in 1953, I first
learned of the Pamplin clay pipes. One of my Indian informants told me
about selling them when he was working at a trading post on the
reservation during the first decade of the present century....
“Later I visited the trading post at Oswego on the Fort Peck
Reservation. There the proprietor showed me the illustrated price list
of the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company, Inc. He showed me
the only type of pipe he still had in stock—the ‘Century of Progress’,
Chicago type (Plate 23 AJ). He said the manufacturer wrote him in 1951
that he planned to go back into the manufacture of the other styles,
which the Assiniboine preferred.”
The Tomahawk pipe was a good specialty item for sale at such events as
fairs and expositions, and the Company’s sales to the “Century of
Progress” in Chicago in 1933 must have been excellent, even though they
had not sold all they had made in anticipation of that demand. The bowl,
necessarily narrow and elongated since it was in the blade of the
tomahawk, did not recommend it to serious smokers, nor to the
Assiniboine.
It would seem evident that these pipes were left over from the
production of the Company in 1933, that their regular pipe models had by
this time been sold out, and that the Company was already in a State of
quiescence in 1951.
Dr. Clyde G. O’Brien of Appomattox stated that the Company ceased
operations in 1951.
The Charter of the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company shows
that it was incorporated by the Commonwealth of Virginia on the 15th day
of August, 1929. The officers at that time were, J. V. Lewis, Pres.,
Prospect, Virginia; J. W. Franklin, V.Pres., Pamplin; L. N. Ligon,
V.Pres., Pamplin; T. R. Pugh, Secy-Treas., Pamplin.
The purposes of the Company then were, among other things, to deal in
wood of all kinds, own timber lands, contract to do construction work,
deal in real estate, _and to buy and sell all kinds of necessary
material ... and operate all the necessary equipment and machinery for
the purpose of manufacturing clay pipes, crocks, and earthenware_....
(Charter Book No. 1, Page 108, Appomattox County, Virginia). The
corporation (Charter No. 34565-16) was dissolved by the State
Corporation Commission, at the request of the stockholders, on February
21, 1952.
A personal communication, February 23, 1972, from Morton L. Wallerstein
who with Ralph L. Dombrower as corporate officers were the last active
operators of the pipe factory, states, “Mr. Dombrower and myself, as
sole stockholders, started the operation in 1938 and baked the clay
pipes up to the time of the enactment of the Minimum Wage Law by
Congress. At that time it was apparent that the part-time workers,
largely farm girls and boys who worked in the afternoon, would cease to
be employed because the pipes could not be marketed under the wages
required to be paid.
“However, Mrs. Betty Price and another woman made the hand-made clay
pipes at their homes, which pipes Mr. Dombrower bought after 1938 and
very cleverly boxed in antique fashion and sold them for some years.
However, unfortunately the women who made these pipes died and they were
no longer made.
“The factory, itself, did not manufacture pipes beyond the period stated
above. The property was sold in 1947 and the corporation was dissolved
in 1952.”
Apparently then, the Pamplin Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Company
ceased all activity in 1951, having been in existence slightly more than
70 years.
Some time after the closing, the main factory building was used as a
garage. In July of 1969 this frame building, with the name “Pamplin
Smoking Pipe and Manufacturing Co., Inc., American Indian Clay Smoking
Pipes” still painted above the entrance, stood unoccupied; the crumbling
old smokestack and large round kiln of brick construction were still
there (Plates 4 & 5). Another building which had served Company purposes
had been destroyed.